1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor chip that includes a plurality of processing apparatuses, such as so-called processor elements.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have been proposed a number of techniques for enabling a semiconductor chip, including a plurality of processor elements (PE) of the same type, to implement necessary functions using a PE array. However, a comparable wired-logic (WL) device generally is at least 10 times as powerful as a semiconductor chip of the above type in performance.
A typical PE array-based data processing apparatus is disclosed illustratively in WO 2006/046711 A1.
The disclosed data processing apparatus has an array of PEs each containing logical circuit hardware control information that can be reconstituted on a cycle-by-cycle basis. Equipped with a plurality of facilities for selecting cycle-based mapping information, this data processing apparatus may have its arrayed PEs programmed into diverse logic circuits as desired.